INTRODUCTION
T his is an account of a young RAF pilot, Tom Storey, during six months of operational flying with 148 Special Duty Squadron in the Mediterranean, the Balkans and Poland during World War II, and an attempt to understand the reasons for his death twenty years later. These aircrews were brave and skilful beyond their years and my admiration for them has grown throughout the progress of this work. This story is personal because Tom Storey was my father, but many families had their lives unravelled by the trauma that war leaves in its wake; it is a story as relevant today as it was seventy years ago.
One of the reasons I wanted to write a story about my father’s time with 148 Squadron was that first, I have acquired quite a lot of information over the years and it seemed wrong just to sit on that and do nothing with it and, secondly, it is a personal journey for me, an attempt to lay some ghosts to rest. My father never talked about his wartime experiences, maybe because of the inherent secrecy of the work, or maybe because he could not bear to recall that time, so I have little first-hand information other than a discussion with Charlie Keen, flight engineer on my father’s crew, and written accounts by other crew members; bomb aimer, Eddie Elkington-Smith and wireless operator, Walter Davis. I met Walter Davis in 2013 and he and his daughter, Anne Black, not only shared photographs and letters with me, but gave me access to his flying logbook, which contained a record of all the flights, more than forty, that he had made with Tom. Paul Lashmar, journalist and documentary maker, generously shared the research material he had gathered about my father’s last flight, and Mike Bedford-Stradling, son of crewmember Patrick Stradling, kindly provided me with material from his father’s archive. It is the personal nature of this story which I hope will convey adequately the magnificence of ordinary men in extraordinary circumstances.
I have tried to present, as accurately as possible, the context in which my father and his crew were operating, and the conditions in which they lived. I believe the truth is in the facts. I have used a combination of Squadron operational records, personal accounts, and information gleaned from an excellent selection of books written on the subject. I hope I do those authors justice in my own account, and, more importantly, honour those profoundly brave young men, who operated in secrecy and, until very recently, with little in the way of recognition or memorials.
THURSDAY 23 rd APRIL 1964
I remember running very fast downhill to the telephone box. Running so fast that my heart nearly pounded out of my chest, but I couldn’t slow down, I had to go faster still. I was 16 and had come home from school on the bus with my sister Susan. We dropped our schoolbags on the kitchen floor and ran upstairs to say hello to Dad. He had been in bed for a couple of days – it being the anniversary. The anniversary meant getting very drunk most years, but this year he was out of work and there was no money for drinking. He had found oblivion in a bottle of sleeping tablets and we skipped into the room to find him dead, lying in bed with the covers pulled up and one arm hanging over the side. Lots of shouting, Mum rushing upstairs, an untouched cup of tea on the floor by the bed, “Get an ambulance, quick”. I could barely find breath to get the words out. “Come quickly, I think he’s dead.” The sirens reached the house before I did. Resuscitation failed, doctor serious and resigned, hope falling away and desperation filling the room, he was gone. The coroner decided the balance of his mind had been disturbed, and he was right to think that, but not right to say that he took his own life. He simply couldn’t face that day, the 23 rd April, and needed to blot it out – his inner turmoil reached an unbearable pitch on that day every year.
I can’t say what caused such pain because he
T his is an account of a young RAF pilot, Tom Storey, during six months of operational flying with 148 Special Duty Squadron in the Mediterranean, the Balkans and Poland during World War II, and an attempt to understand the reasons for his death twenty years later. These aircrews were brave and skilful beyond their years and my admiration for them has grown throughout the progress of this work. This story is personal because Tom Storey was my father, but many families had their lives unravelled by the trauma that war leaves in its wake; it is a story as relevant today as it was seventy years ago.
One of the reasons I wanted to write a story about my father’s time with 148 Squadron was that first, I have acquired quite a lot of information over the years and it seemed wrong just to sit on that and do nothing with it and, secondly, it is a personal journey for me, an attempt to lay some ghosts to rest. My father never talked about his wartime experiences, maybe because of the inherent secrecy of the work, or maybe because he could not bear to recall that time, so I have little first-hand information other than a discussion with Charlie Keen, flight engineer on my father’s crew, and written accounts by other crew members; bomb aimer, Eddie Elkington-Smith and wireless operator, Walter Davis. I met Walter Davis in 2013 and he and his daughter, Anne Black, not only shared photographs and letters with me, but gave me access to his flying logbook, which contained a record of all the flights, more than forty, that he had made with Tom. Paul Lashmar, journalist and documentary maker, generously shared the research material he had gathered about my father’s last flight, and Mike Bedford-Stradling, son of crewmember Patrick Stradling, kindly provided me with material from his father’s archive. It is the personal nature of this story which I hope will convey adequately the magnificence of ordinary men in extraordinary circumstances.
I have tried to present, as accurately as possible, the context in which my father and his crew were operating, and the conditions in which they lived. I believe the truth is in the facts. I have used a combination of Squadron operational records, personal accounts, and information gleaned from an excellent selection of books written on the subject. I hope I do those authors justice in my own account, and, more importantly, honour those profoundly brave young men, who operated in secrecy and, until very recently, with little in the way of recognition or memorials.
THURSDAY 23 rd APRIL 1964
I remember running very fast downhill to the telephone box. Running so fast that my heart nearly pounded out of my chest, but I couldn’t slow down, I had to go faster still. I was 16 and had come home from school on the bus with my sister Susan. We dropped our schoolbags on the kitchen floor and ran upstairs to say hello to Dad. He had been in bed for a couple of days – it being the anniversary. The anniversary meant getting very drunk most years, but this year he was out of work and there was no money for drinking. He had found oblivion in a bottle of sleeping tablets and we skipped into the room to find him dead, lying in bed with the covers pulled up and one arm hanging over the side. Lots of shouting, Mum rushing upstairs, an untouched cup of tea on the floor by the bed, “Get an ambulance, quick”. I could barely find breath to get the words out. “Come quickly, I think he’s dead.” The sirens reached the house before I did. Resuscitation failed, doctor serious and resigned, hope falling away and desperation filling the room, he was gone. The coroner decided the balance of his mind had been disturbed, and he was right to think that, but not right to say that he took his own life. He simply couldn’t face that day, the 23 rd April, and needed to blot it out – his inner turmoil reached an unbearable pitch on that day every year.
I can’t say what caused such pain because he
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